I get asked this question almost every single day and every single time I tell people the same thing. I eat real food. I eat meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, and lately I have been eating a few paleo breads and sweets which technically aren't sweets because they do not contain any sugar except a little honey or maple syrup. I have added a little cheese back into my diet, but have quickly realized it does not make my body very happy so I will only be eating it if I am desperate for pizza. I have been very interested in trying out cashew cheese so maybe I will give that a try and report back to you how that turned out.
I have posted a few times about what I can not eat and I have also written a little about my Whole 30 I completed in May, but I thought it would be fun to do a real day in the life of someone who has food allergies. I actually did a lot of cooking yesterday, but there are a few more things I want to get thrown together and in the freezer since the girl is finally at the babysitters (HALLELUJAH!!) and I can cook without being asked 20 million times to play a song, or put a movie in, or blow bubbles!!!
Breakfast
I eat some sort of egg concoction almost every single day. If I am feeling wild I might make some almond flour pancakes, but on a typical day I will have eggs, but I will cook them differently to trick my mind into thinking I am not eating the same thing everyday. I do have some gluten free oats I make Mckinley oatmeal with which I can eat, but I have found that is just too heavy for my stomach that early in the morning. So how many ways are there to cook eggs? I use a variation of scrambled, egg muffins, poached, fried, frittatad, quiched, and hard boiled. I am sure there are many other ways you can cook an egg, but these are my go to styles. The day I learned to poach an egg was life changing! I love a good over medium fried egg, but I hated having to fry an egg. It took too long and I felt like I was wasting my coconut oil doing it too often. Finally I found a recipe that taught me how to poach without any special equipment. All you need is a large deep saucepan filed about an inch with water, some good sized ramekins, some oil to grease the ramekins and help those eggies slide out easily, and some seasoning. Place the saucepan on the stove and place the greased ramekins in the water. I like to break my eggs in a glass pyrex measuring cup then individually pour them in their ramekins so I don't break the yolk. Bring water in saucepan to simmer, cover the pan, and set your timer for 5 minutes. Don't over cook them because your yolk will get hard and you want that yummy runny deliciousness to dip your homemade turkey sausage in.
I eat some sort of egg concoction almost every single day. If I am feeling wild I might make some almond flour pancakes, but on a typical day I will have eggs, but I will cook them differently to trick my mind into thinking I am not eating the same thing everyday. I do have some gluten free oats I make Mckinley oatmeal with which I can eat, but I have found that is just too heavy for my stomach that early in the morning. So how many ways are there to cook eggs? I use a variation of scrambled, egg muffins, poached, fried, frittatad, quiched, and hard boiled. I am sure there are many other ways you can cook an egg, but these are my go to styles. The day I learned to poach an egg was life changing! I love a good over medium fried egg, but I hated having to fry an egg. It took too long and I felt like I was wasting my coconut oil doing it too often. Finally I found a recipe that taught me how to poach without any special equipment. All you need is a large deep saucepan filed about an inch with water, some good sized ramekins, some oil to grease the ramekins and help those eggies slide out easily, and some seasoning. Place the saucepan on the stove and place the greased ramekins in the water. I like to break my eggs in a glass pyrex measuring cup then individually pour them in their ramekins so I don't break the yolk. Bring water in saucepan to simmer, cover the pan, and set your timer for 5 minutes. Don't over cook them because your yolk will get hard and you want that yummy runny deliciousness to dip your homemade turkey sausage in.
A typical breakfast of turkey sausage and spinach quiche with coconut milk vanilla coffee. I use my immersion blender to make my coffee all foamy and delicious.
Speaking of turkey sausage that is another breakfast item I eat daily or use in my egg muffins, quiches, and frittitas. I found this recipe and my life has not been the same since. I can not eat any pre made sausages because almost all of them contain pepper and trust me I have contacted many companies to see if I could fin 1 that I could eat that might make my life a little easier, but sadly to make sausage you need pepper. I use an old season jar to keep all of my homemade seasonings in. I write the recipe on each bottle so I don't have to run to Pinterest every time I start running low. Here are 3 of my favorites:
Breakfast Sausage
Season All or Burger and Fry Seasoning
Poultry Seasoning for my Almond Meal Chicken Fingers
Breakfast Sausage
Season All or Burger and Fry Seasoning
Poultry Seasoning for my Almond Meal Chicken Fingers
Lunch
Lunch is my least favorite meal of the day. I always feel like I am scrounging for something to eat and I usually end up eating some sort of Boars Head lunch meat wrapped up in lettuce with some sort of fruit. Every now and then if we have leftovers I will try to finish those off.
This is lunch on a very good day when I actually have leftover bacon to make a turkey "club". That brown thing is a homemade chocolate date bar which we will talk about during snack time.
Another of my favorite go to lunches is tuna salad stuffed hard boiled eggs. I use this eggless mayo recipe from The Clothes Make The Girl and make these tiny little handfuls of deliciousness!
Snack
I don't really snack since most snack foods are off limits to me and ever since I began eating Paleo I do not eat the same as I used to. I used to always feel hungry. I used to snack all day long. I don't know if it was kicking my sugar habit or cutting out carbs even gluten free ones changed how my body dealt with feeling hungry. I still get hungry, but it is not an all day everyday thing. I feel like I have broken free of the hold food had over me. I enjoy food and don't let food control me anymore. I will have a handful of nuts every now and then or a homemade date bar, but my go to in between food is a smoothie with spinach, a frozen banana, some frozen fruit, chia seeds, and almond milk if I am having a really long day or need a pick me up.
One of my favorite snack foods to make is homemade date bars. So far I have tried the cherry (my favorite), chocolate (delicious when mashed with a piece of cherry), and the gingerbread. Brent does not care for Larabars and has tried a few different flavors, but he LOVES my homemade bars so if he requests them I make them!
This cup of deliciousness contains 1 frozen banana, a handful of frozen blueberries, about 1/4 a cup of mixed frozen fruit, a handful of frozen spinach leaves, a teaspoon of chia seeds, about 1/4 a cup of unsweetened almond milk and some water to make things move more smoothly. One of my best and really only kitchen tips I have is to throw the entire bag of spinach leaves in the freezer as soon as you get home from the store. It freezes perfectly and breaks apart easily to be placed into smoothies and cooking and keeps it from going bad.
Dinner
Dinner is probably my most favorite meal of the day because I am not eating the same things over and over and over and over and over again! Now we do eat a lot of the same things like Turkey Tacos every Tuesday (Taco Tuesday baby!), but that is just one of our favorite things to eat plus it is super easy so it will always stay on our menu. We also eat pasta (zucchini noodles for me) once a week and we have pizza on Fridays when we do not have plans to get together with friends. A typical week of meals in our house goes like this.
Monday- Something in the crock pot since it is the beginning of the week and I will be very tired when I get home. It is typically something I have prepped and frozen in my freezer that I have thawed out the evening before. Usually a roast, a whole chicken, or some sort of pork deliciousness.
Tuesday- Turkey Tacos or if we are feeling adventurous I will pound the crap out of a pork tenderloin, sprinkle my homemade taco/fajita seasonings all over with a squeeze of lime and Brent will grill it for pork tacos.
Wednesday- Either spaghetti/Zucchini Noodles with homemade spaghetti gravy or Brent will make us our favorite crawfish pasta sauce
Thursday- Is usually a toss up day. We wither eat leftovers, everyone fends for themselves, or we eat breakfast for dinner.
Friday- We like to make homemade pizzas if we are not getting together with friends or going out for a date night.
I am a much more adventurous cook these days since I decided to only eat whole foods and to cut out all processed foods and this was my most adventurous undertaking to date. I found a recipe for making a pizza crust out of a Yuca or Cassava Root. I have picked up a yuca a few times at Whole Foods since finding this recpie and promptly place it back down, but I decided to just go for it after I had to run to Whole Foods to get some dates to make my date bars. It sat in my fridge for a few days until last night. Brent's soft ball game got rained out and he called me while I was at the store and said he wanted pizza so I decided to just go for it. I am so happy I decided to give this recipe a try because it was AMAZING! It was pretty easy to put together and made a super crunchy crust. I added some Italian seasoning and garlic salt to my yuca crust and after I flipped my crust with about 10 minutes to go I added all of my toppings (olive oil, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil from my garden) and it was perfect. It had the best texture and flavor and I will probably be a yuca root pizza crust girl from now on.
I will be spending the rest of my day searching for more yuca recipes and coming up with the recipes I want to make over the next few weeks so I can have a stock of freezer meals all prepped before I have to go back to school.
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